


Mission

by yet_intrepid



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-12
Updated: 2013-05-12
Packaged: 2017-12-11 16:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/800585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yet_intrepid/pseuds/yet_intrepid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas, 1828. Feuilly has lost his job after going to prison and rent is coming due at the beginning of January. Seeing that he’s desperate but unwilling to ask for help, Jehan, Courfeyrac, and the rest of the amis develop a creative plan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mission

**Author's Note:**

  * For [worriedducks](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=worriedducks).



Feuilly collapsed fully dressed into bed in his room on the sixth floor after yet another day of no work.

It was December twenty-second. Nine days to the New Year. Nine days until a quarter’s rent was due.

And Feuilly had no job, no prospects, and barely enough savings to eat.

Even pawning his books wouldn’t get him enough. He’d already asked at the shop, painful though it had been. And his landlady wouldn’t give him so much as a day extra, he knew. To her, a room with a lodger behind on their rent was a room that needed someone new in it. Come January second, he’d be on the freezing streets.

If he could get together six francs by then, he could get a bed in a dormitory. His books could probably get him six francs, battered as they were, but he had to eat something if he was going to continue wandering through the city and searching for a job.

As he curled up under the one thin blanket he had not sold, teeth chattering and body shaking violently, he wished heaven’s fiercest damnation on the fact that after that combination revolt and strike he’d gone to prison long enough to lose his job—and at this time of year, too, when the poor froze to death out-of-doors and daywork was impossibly scarce.

What in God’s name was he going to do now?

——

“Are you sure this will work?” Jehan asked Courfeyrac, as he crammed his arm into a tight coat-sleeve.

Courfeyrac patted Jehan’s head, which was adorned with curling rags. “Don’t be so doubtful, my dear fellow! It is the best plan we could have devised, and we shall execute it admirably. Now come, let me button up your coat—yes, good, it’s tailored admirably. Amelie is a genius, is she not?”

Jehan agreed amiably about the talents of Courfeyrac’s mistress, laughing as much as he dared in the tight coat of Courfeyrac’s that had been taken down two sizes and was promised to let out again without damage to the fabric. He had never been so uncomfortable in his life, but he did not mind—the cause was good, and even he would submit to being a dandy for a good cause.

“Now,” said Courfeyrac, as he took a cravat and wound it around Jehan’s neck, “do you remember all I’ve told you about mannerisms? A haughty tilt of the chin…the voice, lazy (although of course I can do most of the talking)…be careful of the curls. Oh, no, that knot’s no good with the ensemble; let me try a different one…”

Jehan stood patiently, letting Courfeyrac work, trying his best to think as a dandy should. When his cravat was tied to perfection, Courfeyrac busied himself with Jehan’s hair, arranging the curled locks and fussing that they were a little too long to be properly fashionable. However, once Jehan’s hat was settled at an angle on his forehead, Courfeyrac announced his appearance to be quite satisfactory.

“A disguise well-suited to the mission,” he said with a grin.

——

Feuilly was treading the streets, as he had been since he found himself woken by the cold at five that morning. He tried factories, shops, the docks, the few construction sites he found, all with no success. Even the lead he had on a theatre needing someone to help paint backdrops fell through.

He stopped in a cheap café and ordered a cup of coffee, because he could go on without food but wasn’t sure he could manage any longer if he didn’t warm up, and watched the people on the streets. The waitress gave him a smile as she set the cup in front of him.

“Christmas is just two days off,” she said warmly. “You looking forward to the day off work?”

“I haven’t got work,” he said, but not unkindly. He hadn’t been seeing the other amis de l’abaissé lately and a smile was a rare thing in all these days of rejections from foremen and clerks.

“I’m sorry,” she said, with the sincerity of someone who knows the situation too well. “And the quarter coming up, too…I hope you find something soon, monsieur.”

He thanked her and sipped gratefully at his coffee, letting it startle the freezing ache from his body. As it began to snow, she discreetly refilled his cup for free.

——

It was mid-afternoon when Jehan and Courfeyrac strolled up to the dilapidated seven-story tenement in which Feuilly lived and strode in lackadaisically, funds from the amis collectively safely tucked away. “Excuse me,” called Courfeyrac in a dignified drawl, “we wish to speak to the owner.”

The landlady, white-haired and thin, came hurrying out at the sound of such a bourgeois voice. “Messieurs,” she said, dropping a curtsy, “what can I do for you?”

“Oh,” said Courfeyrac, “nothing, nothing, madame. It’s going to be Christmas, you know. We thought we’d practice a bit of Christmas charity.”

“Oh, of course!” she exclaimed. “What would you like? There’s a family on the fourth floor—or maintenance and repairs, always maintenance and repairs, you can give any sum for that…”

“No,” interrupted Jehan, “we want a sweeping gesture, you see. We want to pay a quarter’s rent. For a whole floor. Which one did the dice land on, Boulet? The sixth, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, the sixth,” Courfeyrac said. “Now, madame, if you’ll affirm the sum for us? If we have not the necessary funds with us, we shall make you out a bank draft at once.”

She quoted the figure. They had the money, Jehan having found himself with an end-of-year surplus to donate the endeavor. The transaction was made at once.

The landlady thanked them profusely. “Oh, messieurs, I don’t know how to repay you—I shall make sure everyone knows of your generosity to them—although how, I am unsure; for I am a busy woman—”

“Make us a sign at the entrance,” Courfeyrac said. “You can credit us, should you like. My name is Monsieur Arnaud Francois-Pierre Boulet.”

“And I,” said Jehan, “am the Marquis Philippe Ermenegilde d’Hubert.” Courfeyrac shot him a look, but he offered the landlady a very properly disengaged smile. “Merry Christmas, madame.”

She scribbled down their names and covered them in praises as they went off (“the sixth floor, mind,” Courfeyrac reminded her on his way out,) and then they were gone, rushing back to Courfeyrac’s apartment to get Jehan into his ordinary clothing.

——

They had a meeting that evening, and Feuilly came, his step lighter than it had been and something bright in his eyes.

“I don’t care for people who boast about their charity,” he said, after explaining what he had found at home, “but I can’t complain right now. The rent is paid, and I’ve got time to find work.”

They all smiled, though for more reasons than Feuilly could guess, and Courfeyrac clapped him on the back with a laugh as he poured wine for everyone and assured them Feuilly would find work and that Christmas would be beautiful.

Their mission was accomplished, and Feuilly was happy.


End file.
